If you had been roaming around on the fourth floor of Mandarin Gallery, Orchard Road last weekend, then you would have probably seen vigorous workout classes being staged throughout the day – yes, within the busy shopping mall itself.

These had been part of The Gallery Experience – organised by Mandarin Gallery to engage the shoppers at the mall.

Bringing innovative lifestyle concepts to Mandarin Gallery

Said Claudia Chua, Senior Marketing Manager at OUE Limited, which manages Mandarin Gallery’s retail portfolio, “One of the main concepts of The Gallery Experience is to bring innovative and interesting lifestyle concepts to Mandarin Gallery to surprise and delight our shoppers.”

She added, “By introducing trending activities into traditional mall spaces, we hope that through The Gallery Experience, shoppers will be entertained by new and innovative workouts in a novel Instagram-worthy setting. Most importantly though, we want them to have fun and it is a great opportunity for them to pick up a new sport and stay active.”

A series of pop-up workouts that made its debut in December last year

The Gallery Experience series of pop-up workout events initially made its debut in December 2015, and had featured the first ever Silent Yoga in Singapore as well as Silent Disco – for the first time within a shopping mall.

Added Claudia, “And now, in the third edition, which took place last weekend, we introduced Rock Boxing to our shoppers. This workout is a combination of Body Combat, together with light weights and participants had the opportunity tor perfect their right hook stylishly to the beat of rock music.”

The third edition, themed Knockout, took place last weekend, on the 2nd and 3rd of April.

Invited to try a session of RockBoxing

The Gallery Experience had invited me to try out a session of their RockBoxing class last Saturday.

Said Russell Harrison, 35, the Owner and Coach of Spartans Boxing Gym, who had been conducting the RockBoxing session, “RockBoxing is a very structured type of boxing whereby an instructor will lead you through the class and take you through exercises involving cardio, mobility and technique. It is quite different to a traditional boxing class, whereby you go in and punch a bag and do your own thing.”

Before the action, for protection, we all wrapped our hands in the hand wrap gloves. Then we went through some lunges drills. Next we had to go through an intensive cardio workout including jogging, bear crawls and agility ladder exercises, before the boxing itself started. This had been tiring but still relatively fun…

Next on the list, we learnt the common boxing techniques and punches, before getting into pairs and sparring with partners to practise these moves. This was possibly the most fun part of the whole session, though the constant motion and jabbing had been pretty intense at the same time.

However, the most tiring part of the class was still yet to come – the strength and conditioning exercises, including mountain climbers, burpees and push-ups. None of us  had been able to sustain these strength exercises! In fact, by the end of this ten-minute long session, I just wanted to lie on the floor and not move. Till today, I am still feeling some aches and pains from the workout!

RockBoxing classes are great fun

But despite the exhaustion, it had certainly been a very fulfilling session and the hour-long class had been over very quickly. In short, it was something I had thoroughly enjoyed and would not hesitate to try again.

Said Russell, “RockBoxing classes are great fun – they give people the chance to come in and learn how to box and get super fit, but at the same time, to not get pouched in the face. That’s what most people want – and together with the rock music, the intensity gets really high, but there is always a lot of laughter and everyone walks away with a good sweat.”

Participants also got to take part in HIIT Training and Urban Flow Yoga

Besides RockBoxing, some of the other sessions at the third edition of The Gallery Experience, that participants got a chance to do, also included High Intensity Training (HIIT) and Urban Flow Yoga. And according to Claudia, they have all been popular amongst the participants.

She said, “We have seen positive responses since the inaugural launch of The Gallery Experience and we love that the shoppers at Mandarin Gallery are having more fun than ever.”

Added Claudia, “As such, all of our workout classes are full at every edition and one of the challenges is to accommodate more participants. However, in the previous edition of The Gallery Experience – themed Featherlight, we transformed the outdoor area of the mall into a workout wonderland, bringing the workout to the street, where there are no space constraints.”

A monthly affair at Mandarin Gallery

If you are interested to take part in the next edition of The Gallery Experience, you can stay tuned to their Facebook page.

Added Claudia, “This is a monthly affair at Mandarin Gallery, and shoppers can look forward to more curated lifestyle concepts in the upcoming editions.”